This week's solo episode is sort of a follow-up to what I talked about last week about the show Landman. I wanted to spend more time on the character Rebecca, because she represents the version of woman I spent years trying to become. High-powered, serious, competitive, in control. The kind of woman we’re told to admire if we want to be respected. What I didn’t see at the time was how much of that mindset I was bringing home with me, and how destructive it was to my marriage and my family.

I talk about how being trained to compete like a man at work changed the way I related to my husband, how I turned into a control freak, and how I couldn’t turn that off once I became a mom. I wanted to believe I could just set boundaries but my work consistently came before my kids even though I hated that about myself. None of this is about saying women shouldn’t work or that ambition is bad, it’s about being honest with the reality of certain careers and personalities, and how pretending they don’t follow you home is a lie I believed for a long time.

In the second half of the episode, I talk about the Epstein files, the work my friends Nick Bryant and Alicia Owen are doing with Epstein Justice, and what it’s been like to come to terms with how abuse, trafficking, and blackmail actually operate in the real world. Not in a sensational way, but in quiet, protected systems that don’t seem to face consequences. I’m honest about how much anger and disillusionment that brought up for me, especially when it comes to politics, power, and the people we’re taught to trust.

This episode is me saying out loud what I wish I had understood earlier about success, power, family, and the trade-offs no one wants to talk about.

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production